This invention relates to a robot carrier structure with a portal wagon movable on rails.
In industrial processing using robots, particularly in automatic welding, the robot is generally designed as a substantially fixed operating unit to which the workpiece is fed from a conveying line along which further processing machines or units are arranged.
Although in high and very high output lines the use of several fixed robots, each of which carries out a part of the overall work on workpieces moving past the robot, is generally efficient and advantageous, in low and very low output lines or lines with diversified production this system has proved to be completely disadvantageous. In fact, it requires the use of an excessive number of robots--as many as there are specific operations to be carried out--and moreover such robots are insufficiently utilized as each of them is operative only for a small fraction of the overall working time.
Therefore, it has been found more advantageous to use only one or a few multi-purpose robots, i.e. robots capable of successively carrying out several operations, however, these robots must be shifted in the operating area close to the workpiece or to the part on which the operation is to be carried out.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a structure for supporting and moving a multi-purpose industrial robot, which structure is capable of moving the robot within a predetermined area to convey it to the workpiece to be treated, this structure being further such as to leave the used area, after passage of the structure, free and practicable for potential further use.
In other words, the invention permits to reverse the general concept of a robot as a fixed installation and to provide a transport structure adapted to receive a multi-purpose robot so that the robot can carry out several different operations along an entire processing area with low or diversified output.